SABC Interview on State Capture

My interview on SABC about state capture last week – I incorrectly assumed the questions would be about the economic costs of state capture, which Marianne Merten estimates at R1.5 trillion (see her article at https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/…/2019-03-01-state-capture…/). Merton’s estimates are conservative, in my view. The bottom line is this (and assuming GDP is an adequate measure, which it is’nt): if you benchmark South Africa against other similar economies (SA’s peers) since 2007, then the average growth rate of our peers is higher. The difference between our actual growth rate and this peer average is the value of the ‘nine stolen years’ plus the actual amounts that were stolen (which Merten calculates, but does not factor in the full cost of the looting of Transnet and what Bosasa stole).